Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps might be best known for his activism against gay rights and the military, but his history with politics goes back long before he began protesting funerals in the 1990s. Across the nation, laws have been passed to limit his controversial demonstrations, including laws signed by two different presidents.

On Sunday, a church spokesman reported that the 84-year-old Kansan’s health is in critical condition. Here are 10 things you might not know about Fred Phelps, his biography and his politics:

1. He has run repeatedly for office. He ran in five Democratic primaries in Kansas, including gubernatorial, U.S. Senate and mayoral races, but never won. He and his church supported Al Gore in the 1988 Democratic presidential primary but later picketed the 1997 inaugural ball because Gore had changed his views on gay rights. He has demonstrated against the funerals of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and William Rehnquist.

2. He lost his mother at a young age. When Phelps was 5 years old, his mother died of esophageal cancer, leaving him and his sister to be raised by their great aunt. His father remarried, but he became estranged from his parents, never speaking to them and returning their mail unopened.

3. He was admitted to West Point. At age 16, Phelps had earned an Eagle Scout award through the Boy Scouts, graduated high school and been accepted by the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He chose not to attend after attending a Methodist revival meeting. He went on to enroll in four different schools, including Bob Jones University, John Muir College, Prairie Bible Institute and Arizona Bible Institute.

4. He represented African-American clients in civil rights cases. Phelps received a law degree from Washburn University and opened his own law firm, called Phelps Chartered. He took on racial discrimination cases, and represented two female professors in a gender discrimination case. He received awards from the NAACP, and made up a third of Kansas’s docket for civil rights cases. He was disbarred in the state after suing a court reporter and making false statements.

5. The United States Supreme Court ruled in his favor. In 2011, the Westboro Baptist Church won a free speech case in the Supreme Court, 8-1, when it upheld a lower court ruling, allowing the group to protest at military funerals. Phelps was named as a defendant for the case (Snyder vs. Phelps). In the opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Westboro’s demonstrations were held on public land governed by local law enforcement and addressed public concerns.

6. He was ordained by the Southern Baptist Church. While Westboro Baptist Church has no ties to the Baptist denomination, association or convention, and most members have disavowed Phelps and his congregation, he was ordained a minister in the Southern Baptist Convention at age 17. He founded Westboro in 1955, and describes it as Primitive Baptist, though not a part of the decentralized group of other Primitive Baptist congregations. Westboro’s teachings strongly deviate from the teachings of mainstream Baptists, but there is no central body exerting authority over which churches can call themselves Baptist.

7. He once sent a delegation from his church to Baghdad. Before the Iraq War, Phelps wrote to Saddam Hussein praising him for allowing Christians to preach openly in a Muslim state. He got permission from Hussein to send some of his congregation to Iraq for a week to preach the gospel and protest U.S. policy, condemning Bill and Hillary Clinton. Phelps had changed his opinion on Hussein by the ex-dictator’s death in 2006.

8. He’s in a Sundance film. Phelps appeared in the 2001 film “A Union in Wait,” which was the first documentary about same-sex marriage to air on national television in the U.S. Phelps had picketed the film’s subject, a union ceremony at Wake Forest Baptist Church.

9. He’s served time. He was convicted of disorderly conduct for verbal harassment in 1994 and served two 30-day jail sentences. He was also convicted of assault and battery charges a year later, carrying a minimum of 18 months, but a judge ruled that he had been denied a speedy trial, so he never served the sentence.

10. He’s banned from Great Britain. He and daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper both received notification from the United Kingdom’s Home Office that they were barred from entering Britain in advance of their first U.K. picket. They were put on a list of 16 individuals (including radio host Michael Savage) who could potentially foster “hatred which might lead to inter-community violence.”